At trial, homeowner says he'd shoot again

Ray Lemes is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Angelo State University student Tracy Glass, 19, on Aug. 4, 2007.

If he had it to do over again, homeowner Ray Lemes still would have shot a college student who bled to death on his cul-de-sac four years ago, he told jurors Tuesday at his murder trial.

“If he wouldn't have entered my house, he wouldn't have been shot,” Lemes responded to prosecutors before both sides rested.

Closing arguments are set for this morning in the 437th state District Court.

Lemes, 51, shot Tracy Glass, 19, five times at about 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 4, 2007. Lemes testified he was awakened by his wife's screams that there was an intruder in the house, grabbed her pistol from beside their bed and ran into the living room, naked.

“I was shouting at her, ‘Where is he? Where is he?'” he recalled. “The door was open and I could see just a flash going around my truck. I ran outside after him. In my mind, I thought he was going to be getting into a car or had somebody else with him.”

Lemes said he ran to the end of his driveway looking for the intruder when he saw a figure jump out from behind a brush pile in the street.

“He came charging around the brush pile towards me, towards the house,” Lemes said, explaining that the person was yelling something and seemed agitated. “I just remember a shot or two going off and the gun almost jumping out of my hand. ... It was just a reaction. I tensed up, and the gun went off.”

But when the figure kept advancing, Lemes said, he put both hands on the gun and consciously “opened fire.”

“My biggest fear was him knocking me down, taking my gun and going back to the house where (his wife) Katherine was,” he said.

Katherine Lemes also testified Tuesday, her scream piercing the courtroom as she described her reaction to finding someone in their house after her chocolate Labrador retriever began growling, prompting her to investigate.

“I was scared. I feared for my life,” she said, adding that her husband seemed to have a similar reaction. “I've never heard him scream like that before. It was pure fear.”

After the shooting, she went outside to find her husband pacing, distraught and repeating, “He was just a kid” over and over, she said.

“He was mortified and shaken up by the whole incident,” she said.

Prosecutor David Lunan pointed to inconsistencies in Katherine Lemes' statement on the morning of the shooting and her testimony. She told police the intruder wasn't wearing gloves but said Tuesday she wasn't sure if he had a gun in his hands.

Lunan also suggested Glass might not have been in the home at all that morning. There is no way of knowing that the figure Katherine Lemes saw was the same person that Ray Lemes confronted and shot, he said.